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Differing results with similar video cards - ugh!
#257509 - 06/16/11 01:14 AM
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Hi all,
I am building a simple cab to play the old school vertical games - Pac Man, Galaga, etc... My challenge so far has been with the graphics. The 1.2 GHz P4 with 384 MB RAM is more than adequate to run Pac Man, but the sprites were blocky. I ran dxdiag and verified DirectDraw, Direct3D and AGP texture were all enabled on the system. (Win XP SP2.) I messed with hardware acceleration in Windows, resolutions, refresh rates, you name it. I tried all the settings in MAME - enabling and disabling D3D, Ddraw, HWstretch, triple buffering, etc... I updated the drivers for my video card too.
Finally, I tried a different AGP card. The one I originally had was "powered by ATI", the one I swapped in was an NVIDIA card.
Thats all it took. Both AGP cards have a modest 16MB of RAM, but the NVIDIA card displayed my Pac Man just like it was on an arcade monitor, warm and fuzzy, but the ATI was cold and blocky.
Of course, the rub here is the NVIDIA card has something else wrong with it, there is a tremendous amount of interference on the screen. I tried physically cleaning the connections because it looks kind of like a monitor when one of the VGA pins is bent, but no luck. I'm stuck with my ATI card and crappy sprites. Anyone have any advice on how to proceed so I can have my warm and fuzzy sprites back? Is there a magic setting that I am forgetting to tweak?
Thanks!
- Jay
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Re: Differing results with similar video cards - ugh!
[Re: jb007gd]
#257522 - 06/16/11 04:13 AM
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You'll likely need to post more info on your setup for anyone to be able to help. (As well as what version of MAME you're running.)
If you don't feel like digging around manually you could run Belarc Advisor and post the main results. STRIP ANY SOFTWARE KEY INFO FROM THE RESULTS FIRST! And uh, no, I'm not speaking from experience. 
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| redk9258 |
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Regular
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Re: Differing results with similar video cards - ugh!
[Re: jb007gd]
#257530 - 06/16/11 05:03 AM
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I wonder why someone would still be running Windows XP SP2? 
SP3 has been out for ions, ya know.
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Re: Differing results with similar video cards - ugh!
[Re: redk9258]
#257542 - 06/16/11 07:59 AM
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> I wonder why someone would still be running Windows XP SP2?
> SP3 has been out for ions, ya know.
Unless using a Tiny version, SP3 is a beast on anything below 1.8ghz.
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Consider it high comedy....sincere tragedy....whatever...don't take it personally.
The Culture
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Re: Differing results with similar video cards - ugh!
[Re: jb007gd]
#257543 - 06/16/11 08:01 AM
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Um.....the nvidia sounds like it's just borked, and you're confusing it's crappy display with equally crappy-looking displays you apparently grew up with. (I didn't see old/dis-repaired monitors back in the day, and was spared this malfeasant up-bringing.)
I suggest sticking with the ATI card, and reading the MAME FAQ and MAME32 help files. You'll learn a lot.
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Consider it high comedy....sincere tragedy....whatever...don't take it personally.
The Culture
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Re: Differing results with similar video cards - ugh!
[Re: redk9258]
#257651 - 06/17/11 06:57 AM
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> I wonder why someone would still be running Windows XP SP2?
> SP3 has been out for ions, ya know.
I've been using XP SP1 since this PC was new in 2005, and I have never bothered updating it, nor have I needed to. This PC still works as good as new, despite being on 24/7 and having an OS which is nearly a decade old. I have not replaced one item of hardware yet, aside from installing an AGP video card, a 60GB hard drive for games/emulators, and increasing its RAM to 1GB (previously 256MB OEM).
I am yet to fill either the OEM 40GB or 60GB yet (I have around 12GB free in total), simply because I do not feel the need to backup the entire internet's worth of ripped films and game data. I have a video store's (gone bust) worth of original VHS tapes and DVDs for that, as well as quite a few game consoles of which can all plug into the back of my stand-up GameCube cabinet, or the 50" plasma in the living room. I haven't stepped into the coin-operated side of things just yet.
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Re: Differing results with similar video cards - ugh!
[Re: Heihachi_73]
#257696 - 06/17/11 09:56 PM
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> > I wonder why someone would still be running Windows XP SP2?
> > SP3 has been out for ions, ya know.
>
> I've been using XP SP1 since this PC was new in 2005, and I have never bothered
> updating it, nor have I needed to. This PC still works as good as new, despite being
> on 24/7 and having an OS which is nearly a decade old. I have not replaced one item
> of hardware yet, aside from installing an AGP video card, a 60GB hard drive for
> games/emulators, and increasing its RAM to 1GB (previously 256MB OEM).
>
> I am yet to fill either the OEM 40GB or 60GB yet (I have around 12GB free in total),
> simply because I do not feel the need to backup the entire internet's worth of ripped
> films and game data. I have a video store's (gone bust) worth of original VHS tapes
> and DVDs for that, as well as quite a few game consoles of which can all plug into
> the back of my stand-up GameCube cabinet, or the 50" plasma in the living room. I
> haven't stepped into the coin-operated side of things just yet.
Obviously you're not a pokerom, let alone using other emus. With Daphne, Visual Pinball (8 and 9), multiple versions of MAME, some PC games, etc, my 'games' folder is at least 65gb.
Also, I'm waiting for the 'SP 1 ??.....you know how vulnerable you are??' argument to be raised by someone.
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Consider it high comedy....sincere tragedy....whatever...don't take it personally.
The Culture
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Re: Differing results with similar video cards - ugh!
[Re: mogli]
#258091 - 06/22/11 02:54 PM
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> Also, I'm waiting for the 'SP 1 ??.....you know how vulnerable you are??' argument to
> be raised by someone.
I think my PC has become too old for them, any hackers out there would be more happy looking for vulnerabilities in the latest Windows 7 release over a nine year old OS used by the last 12 people on earth still using a single core, 32-bit CPU. I've been waiting to use the words 'virus', 'hacked', 'trojan' as excuses to get a new PC since 1996. 
What's a virus scanner?  
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| R. Belmont |
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Cuckoo for IGAvania
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Re: Differing results with similar video cards - ugh!
[Re: Heihachi_73]
#258099 - 06/22/11 05:08 PM
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> > Also, I'm waiting for the 'SP 1 ??.....you know how vulnerable you are??' argument
> to
> > be raised by someone.
>
> I think my PC has become too old for them, any hackers out there would be more happy
> looking for vulnerabilities in the latest Windows 7 release over a nine year old OS
> used by the last 12 people on earth still using a single core, 32-bit CPU. I've been
> waiting to use the words 'virus', 'hacked', 'trojan' as excuses to get a new PC since
> 1996.
Given Windows, vulnerabilities in 7 are often also in Vista and XP. (Plus XP is still popular in corporate environments, so hackers know how to target it). It wasn't that long ago that unpatched gold master XP was timed at less than 30 seconds to pwnage after being connected to the Internet.
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Re: Differing results with similar video cards - ugh!
[Re: aavada]
#258446 - 06/27/11 03:41 AM
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Thanks all,
I picked up a used nvidia card from eBay and as soon as I popped it in I got the nice smooth edged graphics i was looking for. Interestingly, the only software change I needed to make to get the desired result was to turn off the triple buffering option.
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